TheDC Morning: Whoops, we accidentally sent a photo of you dressed as a Nazi

FILE - In this May 17, 2010 file photo, former White House adviser Karl Rove gestures in Oklahoma City. Turns out politics, for all its focus on the gloomy economy, is a recession-proof industry. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

“The leader of the Tea Party Patriots organization issued an apology Tuesday to Karl Rove after the group sent a fundraising email with a doctored photo showing the Republican strategist in a Nazi uniform. ‘We apologize to Mr. Rove,’ Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of the group, said in a statement. ‘While we may have strong disagreements with him on the future of conservatism, we want to be clear this imagery is absolutely unacceptable and are working to ensure this type of mistake doesn’t happen again.’ Martin said the group ‘did not know about or approve’ of the image before it was sent.”

TheDC Morning doesn’t have a position on who is right in the dispute between Karl Rove and his conservative critics. But this doesn’t help his critics’ case. If TheDC Morning isn’t mistaken, Rove’s organization says it wants to put money into Republican primaries to prevent bad general election candidates from emerging — you know, the kind of candidates who accidentally send out fundraising emails depicting their opponent in a Nazi uniform. The Tea Party Patriots just made a pro-Rove argument, albeit unintentionally.

2.) Enter the Sequester — Welcome to the next showdown between the GOP in Congress and the White House. TheDC’s Neil Munro reports:

“Top GOP politicians and President Barack Obama Tuesday traded blame for the pending sequester cuts, and neither showed any willingness to compromise. ‘President Obama still prefers campaign events to common sense,’ said a statement from the Senate Republicans’ leader Sen. Mitch McConnell. ‘Republicans have asked nothing of the wealthiest Americans … so the burden is all on seniors or middle-class families,’ Obama said at an event in the White House today. ‘They doubled down on harsh cuts. … They’d rather have these cuts go into effect [rather] than close a single tax loophole for the wealthiest Americans,’ he claimed.”

“Documents obtained by The Daily Caller show that staffers for then-Sen. Chuck Hagel met repeatedly with a controversial pro-Iran lobby group, and some met with the organization’s president. … Iranian state-run media have referred to the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) since at least 2006 as ‘Iran’s lobby’ in the U.S. It portrays itself in the media as an independent group of Iranian expatriates. But Sam Nunberg, director of the Legal Project at the Middle East Forum project, describes the NIAC as an Iranian ‘front group.’ And documents released during the discovery phase of a defamation lawsuit NIAC filed against Seid Hassan Daioleslam, editor of the Iranian American Forum and one of the regime’s most public critics, include correspondence with Mohammed Javad Zaif, then Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations.”

Hagel must hope the vote on his nomination comes quickly. Who knows what else might come out the longer he lingers?

“The STAPLES Center has kowtowed to insufferable, vegan musician Morrissey by abiding by his request that the venue serve only vegetarian fare during his sold-out March 1 concert. The Smiths’ former frontman wrote the 1985 song ‘Meat is Murder’ for the album of the same name, so you can pretty much gather what his stance is on the whole vegetarian thing. Morrissey requested that all food kiosks at the Los Angeles arena only serve vegetarian items during his concert and that all McDonald’s counters be closed, the Los Angeles Times reports, noting that former Beatle Paul McCartney unsuccessfully made a similar request back when he had a show there.”

You shouldn’t be able to attack McDonald’s and get away with it. Have you had their fries? Shame on you STAPLES Center.

5.) Tweet of Yesterday—Tucker Carlson: To Wiccans and pagans: Sorry for my pointlessly nasty remarks. Your holidays still confuse me, but you seem like nice people.